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I need wine.

And thankfully, my best friend always has wine. I’m due over there for dinner in a couple of hours. She won’t be upset if I head over early. Starting my car, I pull out of the parking lot, leaving everything that just happened behind me.

I don’t need to date. I’m perfectly fine on my own.

When I get to Josie and Bryce’s place, I exercise my “best friend with a key” rights and enter without even a knock. I can hear them talking quietly in the kitchen, so I call out to them as I close the door behind me and toe off my shoes. Josie’s voice brightly calls back, summoning me toward the other room.

The second I enter the kitchen, I’m hit with the domesticity of it all. Bryce is at the stove, already working on something for the dinner our group of friends is set to have in a little over an hour, and Josie is sitting at the table with her laptop out in front of her, a notebook by her elbow. He’s probably helping her work out a plot point for her next great romance novel.

Normally, this would make me hide a smile behind a gag, but it just makes the knife that was wedged into my heart during therapy twist painfully.

Josie grins at me. “Hey, how was your appointment?”

I make a beeline for the small wine fridge they have, offering a shrug as my only answer. I grab an open bottle and two glasses before turning back to my best friend.

“Sure, come on in and take our alcohol.” Bryce’s tone is teasing as he turns back to the stove and mutters, “Doesn’t even say hello or offer me any.”

Sliding into the chair next to Josie, I’m fighting back a grin for the first time since I left Joy’s office. “Hello, Bryce! I’m pretty sure I bought this bottle and brought it over the last time Josie and I had a movie night with Kat.”

Like the mature adult he is, Bryce sticks his tongue out at me. I instantly stick my tongue back out at him until Josie takes the bottle of wine from my hands.

“Calm down, children.” She pops the cork and pours a small glass for each of us. I nudge my glass closer; she raises an eyebrow briefly before pouring more. “What happened at therapy that’s making you want an extra-large glass of wine?”

I take a long sip, followed by a second, before I let out a groan. “She wants me to date.”

Josie and Bryce exchange a look, having some kind of silent conversation the rest of the world will never be privy to. I don’t know why it bugs me so much to see it right now, but there’s an irritation crawling over my skin. Josie and I do the same thing all the time, but I don’t love being on the outside of it this time.

“Just spit it out!”

Bryce’s eyes go comically wide before he quickly focuses back on the stove. I should have known he wouldn’t be the one to say anything, especially since he’s still a little scared of me. A fact I will always take a little bit of pride in. Let it be a reminder of what happens when you screw over my best friend.

“It’s nothing bad, but haven’t I been saying that for weeks now?”

Heat creeps over my cheeks for some inexplicable reason, making it hard to make eye contact with her. Which is not something I’m used to doing. I’ve stared her in the eye and talked about everythingfrom what to have for lunch to what toys are best to use, plus everything in between. We don’t keep things from each other, we’re open books. “I know, but it hits differently when a stranger says it.”

“Can you really call your therapist a stranger?”

I shoot Bryce a glare over the top of my wineglass while I take another long drink.

“Shutting up now.”

Even Josie sends a glare at her boyfriend before focusing back on me. “Bryce’s point is that you and Joy have been working toward this the whole time you’ve been seeing her. Moving to Columbia was supposed to be a chance for you to start over, to move on from Bianca, and the reign of terror she left behind.”

The most annoying thing about heartbreak is that the worst moment of a relationship never fully overshadows the good ones. I’m not grieving the relationship I lost; I’m grieving the one we could have had. If she’d respected my wishes or called me the fuck back, what could have happened? Would I even need to be here, hiding away from the life I escaped in Charlotte? Hindsight tells me it never would have lasted. I am used to working hard for the things I want in life, and she was far too used to her dad giving her everything she wanted, and more.

What I’ll never understand is why she had to target me. Why did she have to attack me so personally that I had to leave a job I loved? What had I done to her except love her? And why was it not ever enough?

Josie takes my silence as her sign to continue, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “I’m worried you’re holding yourself back. I’m not saying I want you to go out and jump on the first person who shows interest, but would it be so bad to go outand meet people who aren’t us?”

A snarky comment sits on the tip of my tongue, ready to come tumbling out. The two of them have completely stayed in their own little bubble. I mean, they have Carter and Katrina, but that’s Bryce’s best friend and his girlfriend. They aren’t building a community in the same way she wants me to.

Before I say anything, though, it hits me. Theyhavetheir community. They brought it with them. I’m the only one on the outside—the one without a friend. Of course I have all of them separately, but they’re in a world I can’t access.

My stomach sinks as one of my worst fears unravels before me. I’m alone while they’re surrounded by people in the same situation.

I suddenly find myself wanting to run far, far away from this place.

Josie’s grip on my arm tightens, almost like she can hear the thoughts running through my head. Then again, with the way our friendship works, maybe she can. “Mia, I’m not sure that came out right. You know how much we all love you and want you around, but I don’t want you to believe you can’t have a life outside of us and Adair. I mean, Katrina has her clients, and I have my writing group. Bryce and Carter are far too codependent to ever stray far from one another.”